Many people are in trouble because of the broken savings and credit association.

The shops are deserted.

In localities where "chain hui failures" occurred, a series of hui owners declared "bankruptcy", even though many of them were still able to pay.

On a mid-October morning, in front of Tan Thanh market (Yen Thanh district), the bustling scene of buyers and sellers was no longer as before. Inside the market, small traders with few customers gathered in groups of 5 or 7 to chat. Most of their stories revolved around the issue of the hui collapse, from the hui owner who had just run away, to the hui owner who had just declared bankruptcy, unable to pay. Next to that, there were many stalls that were tightly closed. When asked, it turned out that the shop owners were victims of the hui owners. Having just lost money, their business was in trouble, so they had to leave to work for hire in a foreign land.

Coming to Tan Thanh commune these days, it is not difficult to recognize the desolate scene. Just 2 years ago, this commune was still considered a bright spot in economic development in Yen Thanh. The economic life of the people has been significantly improved, with a rapid growth rate.

"This is a terrible historical period for our commune, the collapse of the savings association is too terrible, affecting too many families", Mr. Pham Van Chinh - Chairman of Tan Thanh Commune People's Committee sighed.

According to Mr. Chinh, since the consecutive hui failures, the local economy has gone down a lot. If before, in Tan Thanh market as well as shops, the buying and selling scene was very bustling, now it is deserted, life has become quiet. People no longer dare to spend money. Many people lost money and had to rush to work abroad, go to other provinces to work for hire.

“The first hui collapse happened at the end of 2022. Seeing that this hui owner was not punished, many other hui owners followed suit and simultaneously declared bankruptcy, even though they were still able to pay. From then on, a chain of hui collapses occurred. The amount of money people lost was huge, we do not have specific statistics yet,” Mr. Chinh added.

The "storm" of the hui collapse in Tan Thanh commune started when the family of Ms. Le Thi Hoa (54 years old) suddenly "disappeared". Ms. Hoa and her husband are from Thanh Hoa, and started doing business in Tan Thanh 25 years ago. For many years, she has been the owner of many hui chains. However, at the end of 2022, after collecting hundreds of billions of dong from hui members and borrowing from people, Ms. Hoa's whole family quietly left Tan Thanh. The incident left hundreds of households in dire straits, waiting in front of Ms. Hoa's house for many days.

However, up to now, Ms. Hoa's family is still happily living in their hometown in Thanh Hoa. Seeing that Ms. Hoa's case was not handled, many other hui owners also declared bankruptcy.

Expensive lesson

Not only in Tan Thanh, communes such as Duc Thanh, Hop Thanh, Son Thanh..., also fell into a similar situation. In Hop Thanh commune, many well-off households, but just because of the collapse of the hui, suddenly fell into debt. They were all victims of the 44-year-old hui owner in Dinh Phung hamlet. This person stood up to collect hui money from hundreds of people, but in October 2022, he suddenly declared bankruptcy. More than 60 people filed a complaint and filed a civil lawsuit with the District People's Court.

Up to now, after 1 year, many households still regularly gather in front of the hui owner's house hoping to get their money back. Mr. Hoa Manh Linh - Party Secretary, Chairman of Hop Thanh Commune People's Committee said that the incident has seriously affected the security and order situation in the area. Many angry people often come to the ward owner's house to gather to demand money; there have been clashes.

According to ward members, after receiving the money from the ward, the hui owner bought land, built a house for his two children in Vinh City, bought two cars for the father and son to use, invested in buying many plots of land and also deposited savings in the bank. However, recently, the hui owner's family has quietly transferred most of the assets to others, withdrawn money from the bank...

Faced with the continuous occurrence of broken savings and credit associations, which put many participants at risk of losing their assets, the Ministry of Public Security has recently issued a warning to the public. According to the Ministry of Public Security, although this activity is not prohibited in Vietnam, it always poses many risks to participants. Therefore, people need to clearly identify the risks when participating in savings and credit associations and be vigilant to avoid being taken advantage of by criminals to appropriate their assets.

The Ministry of Public Security said that this activity is customary, based on trust and relationships. Therefore, participants are often not vigilant. On the other hand, unlike other types of loans and savings, hui owners do not need collateral. Although the law stipulates that participation in hui must be agreed in writing and may require notarization, participants mainly agree orally and on handwritten documents. When hui collapses, they or the scammers appropriate property, and it is difficult for participants to be fully compensated.

In addition, this is a spontaneous activity, often not public; while the number of participants is large, they know little about each other, have little information about the economic conditions and purposes of the owners of the association. The owners of the association also do not provide full information to the participants (even deceitful in their purposes, ignoring the rights of the participants to view their information), and do not report to the People's Committee at the commune level as prescribed.

This activity is based on trust, self-control mechanism (usually the controller and operator is the hui owner, clan), but if there are many participants, this mechanism will reveal its limitations. Especially for participants who lack vigilance, do not clearly understand the legal regulations, rights, obligations and related legal responsibilities. Many clan owners can take advantage of their reputation, relationships or will pay high interest to attract many participants, even exceeding the interest payment regulations of the Civil Code. Hui owners, clans often do not implement written agreements, oral agreements, are dishonest in providing information about the clan and do not perform reports, rights and obligations according to legal regulations.

Members of the hui can receive the hui and receive interest for several periods. In some cases, the hui owner intends to defraud, so he can pay very high interest. After the participants have paid the hui or even enticed their relatives to join. When they have collected a large enough amount of money, the subjects will take the hui money and flee.

The Criminal Police Department of the Ministry of Public Security recommends: People need to carefully study the legal regulations related to them such as interest must not exceed 20%/year (ie about 1.6%/month), clearly understand the conditions of the owner, members, rights and obligations, legal responsibilities of the owner, members contributing to the association as prescribed in Decree No. 19/2019 of the Government. People should carefully study the identity of the owner to be able to trust when contributing to the association. Carefully study the activities of the association they intend to participate in, can ask the owner to show or make a copy, check the number of participants, the association record book, the amount of contribution, study the economic conditions of the owner, members contributing to the association to assess the level of risk and to serve the settlement of disputes later if any; prepare documents and request notarization of agreements on hui, association. If the clan head manages two or more clan lines or the clan contribution amount is 100 million or more, he/she must notify the People's Committee at the commune level to review, manage, monitor, prevent and handle violations. When discovering information such as many clan heads' clan lines being broken or many members leaving the clan, it is necessary to notify the local authorities for timely handling and resolution.